Satter’s Latest Article About Assange is “ridiculous, fabricated, and of absolutely no value”

By Llama on September 20, 2018

There’s a certain level of absurdity that’s going into writing this because the accusations I’m about to address are so ridiculous, fabricated, and of absolutely no value that it’s really not worth the time. However, we all have that one friend, neighbor, or annoying co-worker who always buys into the MSM’s crap so let’s do a quick run-down on the garbage Raphael Satter recently published on Julian Assange.

THE RUSSIAN VISA

Satter’s article, “WikiLeaks Files Expose Group’s Inner Workings,” starts with what he considers to be a bombshell but in reality is a big nothing burger. In a letter allegedly written by Assange, Israel Shamir was given the authority to “drop off and collect” Assange’s passport in order to apply for a Russian visa. According to Satter, the letter was addressed to the Russian Consulate and was recently leaked to the AP. But even if the letter was legitimate, which it’s not, I cannot possibly fathom why anyone would freak out over this.

Is Satter implying that Assange wanted to seek asylum in Russia? The letter was allegedly written at the end of 2010 when the United States was trying to get their hands on him. Had they been successful, they likely would have killed him so do I care where Assange sought or even considered a visa or asylum back in 2010? Absolutely not. And if Satter thinks this is some sort of smoking “Russian collusion” gun, he needs some help with his investigative skills.

WikiLeaks responded to the article:

Mr. Assange did not apply for such a visa at any time or author the document. The source is document fabricator & paid FBI informant Sigurdur Thordarson who was sentenced to prison for fabricating docs impersonating Assange, multiple frauds & pedophilllia. https://t.co/xzMfhctFx4

So, it appears that the information Satter used for his article originated with Sigurdur Thordarson, a troubled individual who eventually became a voluntary informant for the FBI and is now, perhaps, getting paid by Satter.

As for how WikiLeaks knew that the letter came from Thordarson, the answer may lie halfway into Satter’s article

“Metadata suggests that it was on Nov. 29, the day after the release of the first batch of U.S. State Department files, that the letter to the Russian Consulate was drafted on the Jessica Longley computer.”

“Jessica Longley” was allegedly the name given to one of WikiLeaks laptops so I’m assuming that if it was, indeed, written by Thordarson on one of their laptops then WikiLeaks has known about it for a very long along with any other documents he created. If that’s not the case, we know that Thordarson tried to pass it off previously and was possibly used as evidence in a court case against Thordarson.

Either way, it’s clear Satter’s article didn’t catch anyone off guard but likely just the brought the appropriate disgust that Satter so clearly deserves.

THORDARSON AND SABU

So how reliable of a source is Thordarson? Let’s start with his ties to hacker turned snitch, Sabu. Sabu, leader of the hacking collective “LulzSec,” became an informant after he was arrested by the FBI in early June 2011. Shortly thereafter, Thordarson began communicating with him.

During an online chat, Thordarson told Sabu that Assange wanted LulzSec to hack into Icelandic government and business sites (false) and then he uploaded a video he secretly took of Julian Assange and Sarah Harrison (See @AnonScan’s tweet above) to allegedly prove he knew what he was talking about. Days after Thordarson told Sabu this, the FBI warned Iceland of possible attacks against their electronic infrastructure. This occurred towards the end of June 2011.

At some point during another online chat, Thordarson received a document from Sabu that had been allegedly hacked from the Syrian government. However, the document was fake and clearly used by U.S. federal agents via Sabu and Thordarson to set up Assange and WikiLeaks. So when you see articles like THIS, they’re lying and probably collecting a paycheck from the FBI.

THORDARSON BECOMES A SNITCH AND THE FBI STORMS ICELAND

Although nothing seemed to come from the FBI’s warnings to Iceland, in August, 2011, Thordarson sent the U.S. embassy in Iceland a 3:00 a.m. email offering himself up as a voluntary informant (Personally, I think he started working for them in 2010 but whatever). With permission to enter the country, the FBI landed in Iceland less than twenty-four hours later and although they were not given authority to conduct any investigations while there, that’s exactly what they did; they interviewed Thordarson for the next four days “in hotel rooms strewn across Reykjavik.” Iceland eventually kicked the FBI out and Minister of the Interior Ögmunder Jonasson stated, “…the FBI had intended to use the young man they questioned…as bait in their investigation of WikiLeaks.”

A 3-page document from 4th Feb 2013, released by the State Prosecutor, (National Police Commissioner) of #Iceland in connection with the #FBI “visit”.
( Download Document below ) pic.twitter.com/ghXNwauBsh

In the end, Thordarson ended up jet-setting around the world for meetings with the FBI in Danish and U.S. hotel rooms. At one scheduled meeting in Washington D.C., he was suppose to meet with former U.S. Attorney General Neil MacBride, the man responsible for the WikiLeaks grand jury, but apparently the meeting never happened.

As I wrote previously, Thordarson agreed to rat out WikiLeaks’ security, where their servers were located, and the identity of any WikiLeaks associates that might be willing to cooperate. The feds also asked him to wear a wire and to copy the data off the laptops of WikiLeaks’ staff because who says a free press and the Fourth Amendment are dead?

During his last meeting with the FBI in Aarhus, Denmark, Thordarson handed over eight hard drives containing “information he’d compiled while at WikiLeaks, including his chat logs, photos and videos he shot at Ellington Hall.” One of the burning questions about the U.S. agents’ meetings with Thordarson in Denmark is if the Danish government or authorities knew that the FBI was conducting an investigation in their country. According to cphpost.dk,

“The Justice Ministry declined The Copenhagen’s Post request to comment on whether the government allowed the FBI to use Danish territory to question Thordarson about WikiLeaks. It would be illegal for the FBI to interview Thordarson in Denmark without their consent.”

The article also noted that the hard drives Thordarson turned over to the United States could have “contained information about Danish journalists who had been collaborating with WikiLeaks.”

THORDARSON’S CRIMINAL HISTORY

In 2012, WikiLeaks reported Thordarson to the police after they discovered he had pocketed funds from selling WikiLeaks t-shirts. He stole an estimated $45,000 from the organization and after he failed to pay the money back, WikiLeaks eventually sued him. According to former WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson,

“His situation seems to be very poor and the deceit and treachery border on being the result of serious illness.”

According to a news article that came out three years later, Thordarson had a long history of “theft and fraudulent activities.” As noted previously by @BellaMagnani, this history included “pretending to be Julian Assange online and soliciting for donations.”

In 2015, Thordarson was sentenced to three measly years in prison for sexually violating “nine young men in over seventy separate incidences in the years 2011-2013,” while his victims, I’m sure, will relive the trauma for years to come. Not only that, he had already been sentenced to eight months in prison earlier that same year of sexually abusing a seventeen year old boy as well as having a two year sentence for fraud suspended!! But I angrily digress and ask that everyone keep an eye on their children.

According to an article that WikiLeaks posted online, “The court found that Sigurður is by all definitions a sociopath, suffering from a severe anti-social personality disorder,” so I guess the good news is that they just released this sociopath back into society because justice is also apparently alive and well these days. Like I said, keep an eye on your kids.

If you would like to read more about Thordarson, @greekemmy posted a link to an amazing cache of articles on Thordarson who, no joke, used the handle “Q.” So there’s that. You can find the list of articles here.

RECYCLED FAKE NEWS

If Statter had done his homework he would have know that Thordarson tried to use these documents before or he would come across Assange’s 2013 affidavit which gives a summary of events that happened with Thordar-… nah, I’m kidding, he knows exactly what kind of smear job he wrote for the AP the other day.

Thordarson distributed these docs to Scandinavian media outlets years ago who found them to be untrustworthy. Thorsdarson, a proven serial document fabricator & media hoaxer has been released, so the docs are being recycled yet again.

And it’s worth pointing out the best part of the article which was buried halfway in, “The AP couldn’t confirm whether or when the message [the letter to the Russian Consulate] was actually delivered…” So there you have it, Satter can’t confirm if a fake document was delivered or not to the Russian Consulate. Good lord, the absurdity of it all.

The article also discussed documents that allegedly listed supporters who were willing to help cover Assange’s bail because I guess it’s unheard of that other people might help you pay your bail. He also reported that Assange’s friends and legal associates discussed his options after release which, again, I guess is an absurd conversation to have when the United States wants to kill you.

Lastly, I’ll mention that he reported on an lawyer for one of Assange’s supporters who “told the judge that Assange’s Ecuadorean asylum stunt caught everyone off guard.” Look, I don’t know if that quote is accurate or in what context it was said but yes, I would expect something like that because isn’t that the point? Assange dialing up his friends on a party line to let everyone know what the game plan was so the U.K. and the U.S. had a head’s up doesn’t seem like the best game plan. This entire article is just nonsense, comic relief, or kindling for your fireplace on a chilly Autumn night.

Like I mentioned in the beginning, it’s almost absurd to respond to this type of smear job because it’s so overtly ridiculous — and it’s ridiculous because even if what he said was true, how in the world is any of it newsworthy? Someone might have filed for a Russian visa? Gasp! Conversations surrounding Julian’s safety, the inherent danger of being extradited to Sweden, and what his options were after being released from jail? No! And a list of financial donors willing to help Julian with his bail? Who are these people, they’re monsters! I mean, please. Be sure to tell your friend, neighbor, or co-worker this is hogwash.